


Body on the Waves

by abel_runners



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a capital A, Destroy Ending, F/M, Not A Fix-It, One Shot, my poor shep :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 06:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abel_runners/pseuds/abel_runners
Summary: The beach behind Thane stretches out, palm trees glowing in the bright light, and Shepard can see it. A life here. A life built on sand and water and thick, hot days. Getting him to laugh—that syrupy, low laugh—with her dry jokes. Target practice in the hills. Blooming, dewy-pink flowers. Swimming in the shallows. Each day ripe for the picking. No sickness and no mission and no end. “God, I love you."With a tender smile, he says: “As I love you, siha.” He takes a shaky breath. “Remember that.”There is something in his gaze. Something—off. She frowns, the movie-like reel of images of their new life together stuttering. “Everything okay?”Thane turns his head. Looks away. And there are tears in his eyes.





	Body on the Waves

Awareness is a hard, piercing light that bleeds into Shepard slowly. It starts with the steady build of molten heat: it’s _in_ her, around her, on her, and it is hot. Then hotter. The searing. Crushing. It _burns_ until the heat stops fitting inside her body; until she is nothing but fire _._ Body unhooked, body aflame, she floats, and she loses every thought before she can grasp at it. Consciousness: _it hurts._

Whatever is left of her drifts in this boundless, scalding place. Sink into the boiling, drift, and then sink all over again. Time is nowhere to be found, and neither is Lilith Shepard.

It drags on. Drags through. Choke, crack, that god-awful heat.

 _Hurts_.

Until it doesn’t.

A blink of dark, and the drawn-out burn is put out by an overwhelming rush of cold. There’s a _gasp_ – there’s surging, undeniable relief as the fire is flooded out, but Shepard is _drowning_ as her lungs inhale water. Wait. Lungs. She has lungs, which are wet and choking; wet and squeezing, but her limbs are reattached. Her face, her stomach, her neck. It’s all there. Body, consciousness, body are one again.

The drowning stops on an exhale.

Shepard blinks open her eyes. The first thing: a murky, rippling dark. The second thing: her hands. She glances down and they are covered in undamaged skin. Her Alliance fatigues shine blue on her stomach. She touches her face and jerks back when she finds it _smooth._ No split eyebrow. No red-glowing scars. Just her. Just Shepard, whole. _Why wouldn’t I be whole? Something—happened—why am I here?_

A faint glimmer above grabs her attention. Automatically: _sunlight,_ and she’s swimming before she even thinks about it, and her limbs listen, and they are not engulfed in the flame. _Flames. Why were there flames? Something important. Something I’m missing—_

The thought cuts out when her head breaks the surface.

All around her: dazzling  _blue._ The brightest, bluest sky stretches out over her. Lapping at her sides there is turquoise water. A soft breeze brushes past her, carrying the sweet, balmy scent of mango, of salt, of lush greenery. Shepard blinks the sunspots out of her eyes as she wades in a slow circle. Far off in the distance, there is a glittering white shore, hills of sand and emerald grass extending beyond it. As the rush of blood in her ears fades, she catches the sound of birds calling in the distance; of the rustle of trees; of her own steady breathing. With this _—_ with _all_ this — everything in her sighs and softens, jittery brain lulled to a stop. She almost wants to float on her back and just stay. Rest, for once.

She doesn’t because a flicker of movement on the shore catches her eye. A sloppy jolt of adrenaline tries to kick in at that – body screaming _enemy_ – except it doesn’t, it _can’t,_ the hush of this place too strong. Something inside her is tugging warm as if knowing that there is no danger. Not here.

So Shepard tentatively swims forward towards the blot on the glassy sand. Her limbs move with ease and purpose as if this were the simplest task in the world. Why wouldn’t it be simple? Mind still dripping slow, there is no analysing or worrying or holding back. Just easy movement.

The figure starts to move, and something about it seems _familiar_. Something—

Closer. A little closer, and she can see the figure better against the glare of the sun.

Right when her toes dig into wet sand, she recognizes him.

_Thane._

Everything inside her is stunned into stillness.

_That can’t be._

He steps forward and she knows it is. It can’t be, but it _is_.

Heart jumping up her throat, she’s—she’s running. Splashing through sand and water and grief, she stumbles forward, and there he _is._ In front of her. “Thane—” Her hands grasp at his skin, testing to see if he’s _solid_ and oh, god, oh _god,_ he _is_ and he is real and he is here.

Shepard stops moving, stops searching, her hands stilling on his shoulders. She looks at him with her eyes wide, mouth agape, because he _died_ but he’s standing right in front of her, and she’s with him, and that’s not possible. Not possible, but still happening. “You’re _here_.”

He touches her shoulder with a shaky hand--like he’s testing her solidity too--and then wraps his arms around her in the warmest, softest hug she’s ever had. His skin smooth and a little damp, the forgotten scent of him rushes back: mint and salt and something sweet. And he’s talking, right by her ear, in that thrumming voice of his: “I am, siha.”

 _Siha._ Shepard never thought she’d hear him say that again.

The force of it almost brings her to her knees. _You’re with him. This is really happening._ Frozen shock melds into something bigger; something impossibly crushing, and she exhales, hard. Unfreezes. Tightens her arms around him, ribcage pressing into his, and her fingers are digging into his back and she’s holding him as close as she can get and she feels like she’s—choking—because he’s got his lips on her hair, and he still smells like _mint_ and weathered leather and how could she have forgotten? How could she have forgotten _this_?

A possibility she never imagined. Hundreds of dreams upon dreams realizing themselves all at once. Her cheeks hurt. They ache from the smile she did not realize was on her face. It’s near-excruciating, really, as the unbearable, rooted weight of his loss morphs into relief. It is a tumour ripped out and replaced with something better. Unashamedly, there are scalding tears in her eyes. Unashamedly, her Commander persona dissolves into dust. Just like that.

A minute passes. They hold each other. Both half-crying, maybe. The sharp whisper in the back of her head tries to get her to stop, to compose herself, because this must be _pathetic_ but that hard voice holds no sway here. Not with Thane. Another minute. The desperate, clawing relief starts to settle down, and she brings her eyes up to his. Chokes on her breath, because he’s staring at her with that look: that overwhelming _warmth_. “I missed you,” he says.

Another brilliant smile, stomach going warm. “Missed you too,” she says, quieter this time. Reverent. He traces his thumb over her wet cheek. Wipes it clean. She leans into his hand, into him, into this impossible place. She wants to stay here. Like this, forever. _Maybe I will._

Shepard’s fingers find his face, too. She runs the tips across his cheek, his jawline. The faded memory of all the ridges and freckles comes back into focus. How could the memory of this have faded? “Where are we, exactly?”

“Across the sea. As I promised you.”

 _Across the sea._ “Wait. I’m _dead_ ?” A knotting of her throat at that and a line of panic cuts through some of the buttery warmth because there was a _mission_. Yes, she was on a mission. The most important mission of her life, wasn’t it? And if she died, did she complete it before going out? Did she—?

He brushes a strand of hair from her forehead, expression a blend of tenderness and glassy uncertainty. “I do not know for certain. Perhaps. But you are here.”

Saltwater trickles off her hair and down her neck, her frown deepening. _Perhaps?_

“A mission. I think I was on a mission. Did I finish it?”

“I do not know that either, siha. I am sorry.” His voice is rough, but it’s _his_ voice. The same voice that said _I’m dying_ , that said _you’re the first friend I’ve made in ten years_ , that said _it will be soon_ so many long months ago.

Her questions don’t matter here, and her mission, whatever it was, crumbles into insignificance. She’s here and she is with Thane. She leans forward, and can’t stop herself from feeling his breath on her chin; from her heart thudding in her chest; from meeting her lips with his, her hands looping behind his neck.

Warm and wet, his lips move against hers, fingertips trailing down her jawline. _Salt and honey._ Breath hitching, she digs her nails into the back of his head, pressing her body close to his—a desperate, clawing feeling overtaking her. She’s devouring the moment because she never thought she’d get this and him and them back, and his tongue is slipping across her lower lip, and her head is foggy and _giddy_ and it’s the gentlest sensation. The gentlest place she’s ever been. Another idiotic, unstoppable smile of hers interrupts the sloppy kiss, and there’s a rich laugh and a relief still so intense her legs are weak. Hands, shaky. They part, both breathing a little bit harder. But his breaths don’t catch like they used to. Like they did in the hospital.

A breath. Space stretching and compressing all in one. Something climbing up her throat. Dripping down her chin. “Thane—listen.” Her hands cup his jaw. “I never got the chance to tell you, and I’m sure as hell not wasting this one.” Shepard’s chest squeezes tight with the knowledge of it, with the nights she spent whispering it to herself alone, with the certainty of it:

“I love you.”

Saying and seeing the way his eyes widen, and brighten, and the way he starts to smile makes everything worth it. The heat worth it. _Dying_ worth it. The beach behind them stretches out, palm-trees glowing in the gold light, and she can see it. A _life_ here. A life built on sand and water and thick, hot days. Nights under the stars. Getting him to laugh—that syrupy, low laugh—with her dry jokes. Target practice in the hills. Blooming, dewy-pink flowers. Swimming in the shallows and diving for pearl-white shells. Each day ripe for the picking. Together. No sickness and no mission and no end. “God, I _love_ you,” she says, again, eyes flicking from the beach and back to his. She could say it over and over; she could say it so many times he’d get sick of it. He won’t, she knows, but she finally has the chance to try.

With a tender smile, he says: “As I love you.” He takes a shaky breath. “Remember that.”

There is something in his gaze. Something—off. Shepard frowns, the movie-like reel of images of their new life together stuttering. “Everything okay?”

He turns his head. Looks away.

And when he meets her searching eyes again, they’re glass and welled with tears, still, but they’re not happy anymore. She almost lurches back from the whiplash, the gentle-sweet feeling fading.

“You must return.”

Confusion, first. She gnaws at the inside of her mouth. “What? What do you mean?”

He looks straight at her. Into her. “Do not anchor yourself to me, siha. You must live instead. You must _live._ ”

His words don’t make sense. This does not make sense, because she just told him that she loves him, and this place is beautiful, and there is no reason at all for her to leave. None. So why is he—why is he talking like that? Why is he looking at her like that day in the hospital—like this is the last time? She just got here. It can’t be right, and she won’t _let_ it be.

Shepard shakes her head. Determined. Holds onto him, hard, fingertips sinking into his arms. “No. I’m staying. I’m not losing you again. Whatever’s wrong, we can work it out.”

He closes his eyes, inhaling slowly. Swallowing hard. The heat of the sun is suddenly hotter, and it is oppressively shining and taunting, burning the back of her neck. The chirping of the birds is grating, somehow, and Thane is still staring right into her and he’s still—talking like this is goodbye—

He says: “I will always be with you.”

A hot-iron-feeling worms its way through her chest. _Stop. Stop._ “I’m not leaving you, Thane,” she says, voice unwavering. Resolute. Her hand reaches up towards his cheek, and she’s trying to get him to _see._ To get him to realize that she belongs here. With him and in this life and on this beach.

But then she blinks.

She’s in the middle of the ocean, the water lapping at her waist, and Thane standing at the shore, nearly lost in the glare of the sun. At the distance, her throat seals itself shut, and she surges forward, a choked “No _— wait_ !” slipping out of her mouth. Her body desperately pushes towards him, pushes harder than she ever has, she tries to get back to him. But the water refuses to part. The beach refuses to get any closer. _Stop. Stop._ A gripping force latches onto her right leg, and the sharpest pain she has ever felt wrenches through it—her shriek is cut off by the water flooding her mouth, her nostrils, her eyes. The last thing she sees is a blur of brilliant white and blue.

Ignoring the blinding sting behind her eyes, she tries to kick up and do anything but sink. But her right leg is useless. But she’s drowning.

Still, she fights. This is not happening again. She won’t let it. _Come on, Shepard, get back up there—swim—!_

The brutal, invisible force contradicts that thought by sinking its teeth into her left arm, which goes motionless with a deep, nerve-rending ache—there’s a scream stuck behind her clenched teeth somewhere. But still, Shepard struggles upwards, with the ghost of Thane’s touch, the mint on her tongue, the glimmering promise of that place and that glean above her are all a taunt. A taunt that keeps getting smaller as she’s dragged deeper; as the force does not relent. It reaches the sand-covered bottom of the sea. And it keeps going.

Her kicking, twisting body is broken through the mud-hardened surface of it. Eardrums pop. Ribs, skull, teeth crack. The sea and her love and her promise disappears, and there is only black. Void. Ignoring every fractured part of her body she does not stop: _I’m getting back to you. Like it or not._

The merciless force lets her limbs go.

Weightlessness and disorientation only last for a split second before Shepard tries to start swimming again and return to that paradise, that Thane. But she can’t. She _can’t,_ because she can’t feel anything. Not her limbs. Not her ribs, or her nose or scalp or toes or hands or knee or hips—they’re all gone. Unhooked and unanchored, she is useless. And whatever is left of her _—_ consciousness, spirit, soul, whatever — is sinking into a black mud. A boiling black mud. She’d scream if she could, but her throat is _gone_ and there is only suffocation, there is only burn, there is only a desperation so huge she wants it to crush her—she wants _Thane_ —

Her eyes open and she’s choking on an operating table.

_Shit, she’s awake! She burned through her last dose—up it to the next one. Now!_

Blinding light. Scattered, fractured vision. Anchored to her body, but in the worst way possible, because there is an intolerable pressure on her left arm. A leaking from her right leg. Agonizing, terrible heat everywhere else. She tries to lift her head—to get up and get out and find Thane, but hands are holding her down, and something is blocking her throat, and she can’t _breathe_ , and all she wants to do is _move_ , and _—_

_She’s already in the red zone, if we—_

_Do it!_

A hissing. Air being pushed into her mouth. A rustling, a choke, and she is forced back into the void and headfirst into the black mud.

Her body shuts out. Eyes drift closed.

Loss, again.

***

There is nothing. Until there is something.

A pressure squeezing her skull. An annoying, mosquito-like buzzing coming from somewhere else _._ A stretched tightness all over her skin.

Awareness starts there. Small. Fractured. In pieces she cannot reassemble. Thoughts, if any, are just patchy radio static.

Muffled voices, sometimes: _We already lost her—we can’t keep putting her body through—need more time—siha, you must live._

_I don’t want to. Not like this. Not here._

_You must live._

Awareness grows. It is a seed she never wanted planted, because it is ruthless. Her body is back, and with it comes a persistent, needling itch. A constant lightness in her bones that feels _wrong._ A sharp ache that throbs behind her elbow and knee and head.

Desperately, Shepard wants to sink back into that turquoise ocean. Her mind latches onto it—a lifeboat in the misery of semi-consciousness—and she tries to go back. Return to the sea. To the honeysuckle breeze, the glittering coast, the love of her life. Maybe she can think her way there. Imagine her way there. Wish her way there. If she just tries hard enough, she’ll suddenly find herself at that seabed and swim her way back to Thane, and everything will be okay. She won’t be _here._

Except awareness will not allow her that mercy, and it sharpens its knife, and it wakes her up.

The first thing: a speckled, white ceiling and a blurred light.

The second thing: a hand pressing down on her chest, wrenching her mouth open, tilting her head back. She flinches, body trying to roll away. Except she’s too weak, and the hands are pulling that _choking_ feeling out of her and wiping the spit off her chin, and she is not being attacked.

Third: “Commander Shepard?” A bright light shining into her eye. _Anderson?_ The voice sounded like him. Deep and warm and powerful. What’s he doing here? Didn’t he—?

“Shepard, if you can hear me, blink twice for me.”

 _Blink. Blink._ When did Anderson become a doctor? Didn’t he—?

The voice says something else, but it’s getting lost in the rushing inside her head. _Something’s wrong. The mission. Anderson. I need—Thane. Did I finish my mission? Ask. Ask Thane._

A hissing. A cold washing through. The speckled ceiling going dark.

***

When awareness visits her next, it is angry. It does not start slow—it crushes her with its full force.

The faint ringing in her ears morphs into a high-pitched, piercing whine. The unintelligible voices around her shout and yell and bellow. The beeping machines blend into the emergency alarm of the Normandy, skull-crushing and insistently _loud._ She cracks open her eyes, wanting to tell off whoever is turning up the volume on _everything_ , but the light is a spotlight—a Reaper-beam, and her mouth tastes like rotten oil and metal. The air—antiseptic so strong her eyes water; her throat burns. A pathetic, breathy whimper slips out— _shut up_ —and then her skin. Touch. Hands all over her. Hands pinpricking her arm, her leg, her head. Voices loud, voices asking, voices too close. Bed itchy beneath her. Bed tilting until she’s propped up.

Wants to say: _shut up, shut up—!_

But the doctor grabs her attention first. “Shepard?” _Not Anderson._ She glances at her, and almost laughs. _No, that’s an asari._ “Can you hear me?”

Shepard wants to spit that she needs to stop _yelling_ at her, but she doesn’t, because somewhere she’s aware that that’s probably not what the asari doctor is doing. Still. She’s overwhelmed by being dragged into this loud, uncomfortable, and scratchy world—this world that holds no paradise-blue or mango scented air. This world that holds no—

Shepard does not finish that thought.

The doctor is waiting. Taking a breath to try and ground herself, she tries to remember what the question was. _Can you hear me,_ right? Swallowing, breathing, she speaks through a sandpaper-throat. “Yes.” Quiet and croaky. She tries again. “ _Yes._ ” Better. Still a whisper.

The doctor’s eyes light up. Not Anderson, because ... yes, that’s right. The gun in her hands. The oily-slick feeling inside her muscles, and the way her fingers twitched on the trigger. His eyes going dull right next to her, and the pool of his blood seeping into her broken armor.

The room tilts, sickening, with the knowledge of it. She looks away from the doctor as she clenches her jaw. _Ignore it_. No other choice. “… glad to see you’re awake and lucid. I’m Dr T’Hara. I’m sure you have questions, but we can address those later. First things first: pain scale? From 1 to 10.”

_Pain … scale. Pain. I should be in pain. London. Mission. A beam. My mission. Did I finish it?_

She’s about to ask when the numbness of shock runs out.

_Something is missing._

She looks down. And that’s when she sees it – or when she doesn’t.

Her right calf. Above the knee. There’s nothing there. Just a swollen, bruised thigh that ends too early. And—her left _arm._ Ends too soon.

_Can’t be right. I had all my limbs with Thane. Can’t be right. Can’t._

“We attempted to save your arm and leg, but from all the burn and crush damage, it just wasn’t possible. I’m sorry.” A pained smile. Pity in her eyes. Shepard wants to snap: _you could’ve left me whole and fine with Thane but you brought me back. Don’t pity me! This is your fault!_

She doesn’t. The doctor keeps talking. “Once the injury sites are healed, you can decide if you want us to attach fully-functional prosthetics. Other patients have …”

The doctor fades out as she tries to piece what happened together. Her head is still foggy from whatever painkillers they gave her – must be why she can’t feel whatever is under all the bandaged skin on her body – but she’s pissed enough to wade through it: _Okay. Okay. What happened? Missing limbs. Thane. The Reapers, first._

She cuts her off, scowling, voice still a choke. “Reapers. Are they gone?”

Dr T’Hara stills, staring at her with a sort of worship in her wide eyes that reminds her of a younger, more naïve Liara _. Liara. Is she_ —? _Are they_ — _?_ “Yes. Every single one. The relays are damaged, as is a lot of our tech, but ... the war is over. You did it, Commander.”

 _You did it._ Shepard sinks deeper into her pillow. The feeling of it is so big she can’t even begin to see it. The Reapers are ... _gone._ The weight she’s been cracking under for months and years is gone. Their cycles, their harvesting, their extermination is all over. She doesn’t believe it. She can’t. Her remaining hand trembles instead with the force of it, and she’s too weak to clench it into a fist. Words fail her. Words and thoughts and feelings all fail her.

Dr T’Hara keeps talking as if nothing. “We believe your crew to be alive, but they haven’t gotten here yet with the damage to the relays.”

A moment. A second as she recollects her thoughts and lets those words sink in, too: _your crew, alive._

Apparently, the war is over and they all made it. Her crew survived and so did she.

_Except for the billions or trillions that did not. Except Thane. Except Anderson. Except half my body._

An itching, dizzying feeling starts at her belly-button and spreads upwards. Outwards. Vertigo and whiplash and confusion, something inside her is _aching._ Too big. Loose shoulders and a tight chest. Over and over: _The war is over. I lost my hand. My leg. I was with Thane and then wasn’t. I had him back and then I didn’t. How is this over? How did I get here?_

Angry, horrible tears well up in Shepard’s eyes, blistering hot. She wants to blow up the Reapers all over again, melt in their red-hot beam, shatter in their explosion.

An unbearable voice in the back of her head: _you must live._

The doctor frowns. Checks a monitor. Asks, again: “Now, pain scale?”

She’d bite the inside of her cheek except she can’t find it in her to move. A sort-of-lie, she closes her wet eyes and she says: “Eight.”

T’Hara hums. Frowns. Gives her a dose anyway. “This should help you doze off. I’ll check in with you soon, but do get some sleep. You need all the rest you can get,” she says, clicking off the lights and leaving the room.

A thought: _Maybe I can get back to Thane like this._

But in the minutes before the dose kicks in, her muddled mind clears just for a second. Sharp and bright and cold, the hard whisper inside her says: _don’t be stupid. There is nothing to get back to. That entire “reunion” was a hallucination of a dying, drug-addled brain. It was not real. You never saw him again or told him you loved him. Thane is still dead. Always will be. Do not grieve over a dream, Shepard. That’s just pathetic._

A stinging behind her eyes. Too much. That cruel thought is too big and too much to confront right now, so she won’t. Can’t face the blinding brutality of reality; of loss twice-over.

She leans, deep, into the numbing fog that’s creeping up on her. Even through the sharp, glass-like pain in her chest, she keeps on trying to pretend she can return to that dizzying paradise, to that soft sky, to that gentle ocean. Pretends she will fall asleep and wake up next to Thane, sun in her eyes and her hand in his.

She dozes off eventually, the aching of her body fading into more of a dull throb. But there is one thing the drug cannot fight against: the enormous, crushing sense of _loneliness_ that bout of cruel rationality brought with it _._ In her messy double-grief she is quarantined, and Thane is still dead, and she is still alone.

It is a vast, dark cavern with no flashlight. No way out. And it’s all Shepard has left.

_Siha, you must live._


End file.
